You need help, Rust
by Mariqueen m
Summary: Year 2000. In this universe the "I mown my own lawn" scene happened this year. Marty has a third daughter, older, around 19 called Sarah. I own none of the characters of True Detective (such as Marty Hart and Rust Cohle) But I do own the character of Sarah Hart.
1. Chapter 1

There was a door knock. He wasn't expecting anyone… Never. He just recently got home, and didn't even change his clothes. He was still wearing the same swety, grass stained shirt he was when he got home. The one person he thought could be, wouldn't want to see him now.

He walked towards the door, and was surprised by what he hear. The line, was the same as if it really were Marty. But the voice… The voice was was a little hight pitched, not much. But the line, the line was the same:

"Damn Rust! Open the door,I know you're in there!"

He rushed his pace to the door and open it, even though he saw her on the other side, he was having trouble believing she was there. Sarah, Marty's older daughter. She's so different from the other two girls. So much of Marty rubed off on the first kid, apparently the two following ones were going to be all Maggie. That wasn't a bad thing for them. Two stubborn Marty-Hart-like people was enough to have in one house.

"Hey…" She said "Can I..?" And pointed to the inside of the house. Rust just steps aside an she gets in. He feels, somehow, the right thing to do was to have closed the while telling her to leave. But he didn't. Instead, he has a hand in the door knob and eyes on her, while she takes a discrete, and trying very hard not to be judgmenta,l look around his almost empty house.

She glances back at him and at the open door.

"Do you want me to leave?"

People almost never get a second chance of doing the right thing. This was a second chance right there… And he did what every human been does in such circumstances: Screwed it up.

Almost as if his arms weren't been controlled by him, he pushes the door shut. Walks toward her, but not to her. The apartment seems so much emptier with her there. Much because she didn't belong there. She belonged to her living room, helping the baby sisters with home work. Belonged to her kitchen, helping her mother with the countless dinners over the year, while he watched her grow. Belonged to her silver ringed glasses she was wearing when open the door to him earlier this same day. And wore again when brought him lemonade in the back yard.

She was sun flushed and that said something to Rust, he just couldn't figure out what. He passed right by her and went to the kitchen. She followed him and sat in a chair by the kitchen counter.

"I'm here to apologize by the asshole your partner is" She said emphasizing the word asshole

"You shouldn't talk about your father like this…" Rust responded without been startled by that.

"I'm not talking about my father. I'm talking about your partner… They are two different people that sometimes get confused…"

Rust open the refrigerator and grabs as boxed orange juice and puts in front of her with a glass. She looks at it with some amusement mixed with feeling offended.

"Fuck you, Rust!" That was her father, right there! "What do you want, to see my ID?"

He saw her drinking before, just didn't felt right to give her a beer. He puts back the juice box, gets two beers and hands her one.

She uses her shirt to help opening the bottle. He realizes she uses one over sized Pink Floyd white shirt. It has grass stains on it matching his own. He start putting together the picture of what happened after Marty told him to leave. She continues.

"My father loves his family. Too much… And sometimes, the only way he knows how to show this love, it's been the asshole partner I know you have."

"You don't have to apologize for him."

"I'm not." She says drinking straight from the bottle. It's been ages since he saw a woman doing this. "You seem like a guy who needs answers, I'm giving you answers."

"I had those answers."

"I could imagine that too." She took a long sip in the beer.

He had already figured it all out. After he left, Marty started getting rid of the grass. And she went to the back yard to help. And also to say that her father was been an inconsiderate asshole. He yelled at her, she yelled back. And she got angry. Her face was flushed of sun and anger. She got angry every time people don't listen to her. She was thought by her father to make herself be heard. And when this same man could not be reasonable and listen to what she had to say, she got fucking pissed.

He could smell the freshly cutted grass on her. And the beer in her breath when she said:

"You need help…" That was it, he needed help. The truest unfinished sentence she could have said.

"I don't want help." He answered before she could go on

"Did I said you wanted help? I'm saying that you need it! And, my mother was being nice with you. As were all of us… And then Detective Marty Hart makes a scene…" She nods her head.

He looks at her. She has a strong grip on the neck of her beer. Maybe she also needed help. She needed vent with someone who wasn't on her father's side.

"You still need help…" She said smiling and drinking the beer.

"Is that why you're here?" Rust asks trying to figure out what she really was saying.

She laughed.

"Fuck no! You need professional help. I'm not here to fix you…"

"Like a psychiatrist?"

She shrugged "At least until it prescribes you something good…" She was joking, but he could not tell for sure. "Maybe you can just talk to somebody who has high tolerance to your kind of crazy."

"I tried to talk to my partner…" He drank his beer

"Yeah? How was that like?"

"Something tells me you know…"

"A little much too well." Said Sarah

"And what do you do in this case?" Rust was trying to turn the subject to her

"Find someone I can share a beer with…"

"And that's why you are here?"

"Maybe…" She finished her beer and put it over the counter

Rust didn't like been surprised. So he wasn't sure how to react when Sarah was in front of him and he could taste the beer in her lips and tongue. He grabbed her by her by the arms and pushed her apart slowly while lifting from the chair…

"Sal… You should go."

"No I shouldn't… You need this…" She pressed her body against his "We need this."

"Sarah, I end up hurting people who get too close" He said without pushing her this time

"I don't care…"

He pushed her against the fridge. Her skin tasted like sun burnt and the warmth of the day. She had little specks of grass in her belly. He tasted her skin while she grabbed his hair. He could hear her breathing and the house felt warm for the first time.

She was wearing shorts, that soon were on the floor with his shirt. He pressed his body against her back, and her body against the kitchen counter. There was some difference of height that she tried to overcome by standing in the tip of her toes. When he first could feel the inside of her body, he moaned against her shoulder blades, and she suffocates a scream. Her arms are spread to the front and she claws the marble counter. She feels his body around and inside her, and he's intense. One of his hands is tangled in her hair and he pulls towards him. He is quiet, she didn't thought it would be different… But she can't no longer be quiet. She moans and cry out for him "Cohle!". Her body waved under his, and his name out of her lips was all he could take… As he came, he pressed her even harder against him. She breaths deeply and moans one last time. He moves a little back, and gives her room to move. She turns to him. His head hangs low. She reaches for his chin, and makes eye contact. His eyes are filled with worries, but hers are fulfilled and satisfied.

"No regrets…" She says "That was not the point of this"

She pulls his head over her chest. He can feel her heart pound trough. He don't want to let be carried away by this. But he close his eyes and the sound soothes him…


	2. Chapter 2

Sarah sat in her car. She needed to get out of there, quick. This was his house street and she could not stay there for longer.

"Ok Sarah…" She said out loud to herself "Focus on the fucking mechanics of driving".

She turned the key and slowly left her spot. Just as she did this, a man open the door of his house. He was shirtless and had a beer in hand. His second of today. But no matter how much he drank… He wouldn't lose the taste of grass and beer from another person's mouth.

"And now turn slowly to the right"

She parked her car in the garage.

"My father will have problems parking today… Couldn't care less!"

She slammed the door shut and got in the house.

"Mom!" she yelled from the door "Is Marty home?"

When they fought, she called him by the name until she was finally done with being mad at him.

"Your father," Maggie answered "is at the office."

"Good…" Sarah muttered "Thanks!"

She got up to her room taking two steps at a time and closed the door. Three steps in front and she could let herself fall in her bed. Fell face down. And while in that position, realizes that her muscles from her rib cage down are sore.

She turn her face up and look at the ceiling. Deep down she wonder what the hell she just did. And tries to find a way of regret it. She doesn't.

"Sal…" Maggie's at the door "Are you ok?"

"Yes mam… Why?

"You two put up a pretty big fight today…"

"Not the first, not the last…"

Not another word from Maggie. Over the passing years she got really good at ignoring the father and daughter fights they had. They were explosive, but a few hours later, both were in good terms again. Two stubborn people that had to learn to live together… Almost 20 years trying and they haven't quite figured it out how. But thanks to this fights, Sal had a certain that everyone wants to have, but is never satisfied with the answer. At least to what concerned her father, she was the favorite daughter.

But that wasn't up for her to be worried now. She was thinking about Rust's white house. The white walls and white, almost non existing, furniture. She hadn't actually thought the whole situation through. Her plan was, go to his house, apologize for her stupid father, maybe have a beer and have him open up to her, even the littlest bit would do. So it also struck her as a surprise when she saw herself kissing him. Couldn't even blame the alcohol… Just a bottle of beer, is not enough to start assigning blame to it. She had a chance to flee. He pushed her away, she could have gone. Maybe a few awkward dinners would follow, and then nothing else would be said. But no… She was too proud to do it. She started, she provoked him, she would sure as hell finish it.

So now, there she was… thinking, not knowing what to do now. Not knowing if she could do something now. She needed badly a cigarette. "Please let it be at least one…" She said going through her purse to find at least one… "Aha!" She found the carton, with her last cigarette. Should have bought some coming home. But, on the other hand… She could barely remember how she made the way from his house to hers, imagine remember buying cigarettes. She went to the window and was about to take it to her lips, when an image froze her.

There was a car parked down the street. A car it didn't belonged to any of the neighbors. Her father thought her how these kinds of things were important to memorize. That car didn't belong there. But it was a familiar car. A little too familiar. That car used to park at her front door at least twice a month since years ago. Her hand shook so much, she decided to spare herself of the embarrassment of trying countless times to lit the cigarette. She just dropped both on the ground. The car approached and passed right by her house without stopping. She could see Rust in the driver's seat. He didn't turned to look. He was wearing sun glasses. When the car was out of sight, she didn't lean over the window to see it pass, because he could see her trough the review mirror.

If she was confused without knowing what to do next, she was utterly puzzled on how to act now, that he had made this step. "I could use another beer…"

**Two months later**

"That's great Amanda! Really!"

Amanda kept talking, about how she finally went on a date with the guy she was obsessing about over the past weeks. Sal was actually paying attention to what she said… Until she felt her phone vibrate. It was just once and short. That meant a sms. And that almost for sure, meant someone was around. She got the phone from her purse and in the corner of the screen was a little envelope. The number didn't had a name. She chose not to save it in her contacts, but she had it memorized.

The messages from that number were soon erased by her, as well as the few calls. The messages never said much. Once were three dots, other time was a letter and a number… That was a parking space. This time, it had a word – left. She looked left. Across the park, on the other side of the road, there was the car…

"Oh man…" Sarah said "Sorry, but my mom needs help with the girls and dinner."

They said good bye and Sarah walked the opposite side of the car… She walked casually, no rush… Just as she arrived to the other end of the park, the exit was to a less took road. As soon as she crossed the gates of the park to the street, the car parked in front of her, she walked around it and got in the passenger seat.

"Hi" said Sarah

"Hey…" said Rust

And without any other word, they left.

"I wasn't expecting you today"

"We saw each other every day of the past week, why didn't you expect me today?"

"Because I knew you would be working all day long… Because Marty would too" She avoided call him Dad around Rust. There was no need to make things weirder.

"I need to talk to you now."

She made a face mocking pain. "That can't be good"

She learned that he didn't take sudden bursts of almost every emotion well. But if she stopped, took a deep breath and tried to put what she was feeling into calmly said words, he would answer almost as a normal person.

"Nothing to worry" And not another word was said while he was driving.

She also learned to appreciate the moments of silence they had. He was actually comfortable with her in the car. Enough to don't feel obliged to make small talk. She rolled down the window and enjoyed the wind.

Rust made a turn in a road that was almost not there. The car was jumping with holes in the ground. He made like five minutes in this path, until there was no longer something to call a road under the car.

"I was afraid we would have a conversation I would not like… Now I'm afraid I'll not survive" She said this with an undisturbed look in her face that gave Rust a smirk.

"Maggie called me" He stopped the car at what could be called the side of the road.

"What?!" That was for a fact not what she expected.

"She wants me to go to dinner" He seemed burdened by that

"Is that what you wanted to tell me…?" She was tip toeing around it because she knew this was one moment she could have a total honest response with an emotion he could deal with: angry

"Fuck you Rust!" He looked puzzled at her "You brought me to middle of nowhere to tell me you're coming to dinner? I knew you were coming to dinner!"

"Knew?" He looked a bit more confused

"You were always at my house: dinner, watching games with Marty… And now it's been two months since the last time you were there. You better be going to dinner! My mother is already thinking that you two fought beyond repair"

She took a deep breath. She was relieved that was the whole problem…

He smiled… That was an unconventional response of him. She knew she did something right when he smiled. He was defeated, she was right. It was starting to seem he was trying too hard not to be around Marty's family. He had to go.

"I'll go… You can calm down now, ok?" He said showing his palms up like trying stop her from freaking out. Even though he knew she was already fine.

"You brought me here for this… I knew you were coming to dinner. My mother asked me to help."

"Ok.." Rust nodded and lift his hand to the ignition, she placed her hand on his

"Just two questions… How did you knew I was at the park?"

"You know I find people for a living, right?"

"Creepy pervert! You've been stalking me!" She punched him in his arm and smiled.

"You said two questions…"

"Yeah… " Sal run her fingers tracing Rut's hands contour "You have to go back now?"

They locked eyes with each other. Rust pressed the buttons to release hers and his belt. He reached for her opposite arm and pulled her closer. She helped by holding on to the back of his seat, and in no time she was face to face with him, their foreheads touching, looking right inside each other's eyes. She hold his face between her hands.

Rust's hands run up he tights… She's wearing a black dress with pink flowers, underneath it her underwear seems frail. He reached her right hip with his left hand and rip the string by the side and slides the underwear off through her right thigh. She doesn't even flinch. He likes how she doesn't act out. She didn't act surprised when he ripped off her underwear because that was exactly what she expected him to do. And he expected exactly her not to react, just kept looking inside his eyes… Funny how you get to know somebody so well through sex.

She unbuttons his shirt bit "Not too much…" She thinks "He's gonna work with other detective after this… You know how they can get keen on details". He unbuckle his belt and open the front of her dress just enough so he can see her black lace bra under it. She come closer to him. And as he slides inside of her, she slides her tongue between his lips. He can taste the cigarette on her lips this time. Heaps more satisfying than an actual cigarette. He imagine he could easily get addicted to suck the smoke straight out of her lungs if she was ok with it… She would be ok… She pressed her breasts against him and moved the hips up and down. She had one hand is his throat and the other clinging to the arm that was in her hip. She did not know, how this hand on his throat thing started, but he seemed to enjoy and she wasn't going to stop. She pressed harder and harder till their climax. She liked the feeling of control on his air ways, and he liked the feeling of letting her in charge of his breathing.

He run his hands up her back, tangle his fingers in her hair and pull. She fights the pulling and moves faster.

He feels he's getting closer and closer. She let go of his arm and put the hand behind his head. Forcing him to look no other way but her eyes. He's pinned down to the driver's seat as she mumbles "look at me". She has a wild look in her eyes, her cheeks are bright red, and he realizes no one has ever took control of him like this… He comes at the thought. She tights her hand around his neck and that just intensifies the feeling.

She keeps moving and toss her head back, finally giving in to his hair pulling. She moves faster and he feels when she contracts her legs around him. She moans a suffocated sound, while he enjoys the very fast and transitory view of her in his lap, her head tossed back, the chest up and down with a heavy breath. Surrounded by the view of that god forsaken road they were parked in. At that moment she wasn't a person, she was a force of nature and he was just going with the flow.

She seemed to get back in her senses as she turned her head back to him. She smiled. He was still surprised by how she made him feel. As nothing had happened she just buttoned up her dress and casually said. "I see you tonight, then?"

Rust just smiled and nodded.


	3. Chapter 3

Marty was in the back of the house when the door bell rang. He was fixing the lawnmower in the garage. Some minor fix that would make the equipment probably beyond repair after he was done with it. The two little ones were playing in the backyard under no supervision of Marty.

"Honey, could you…" He yelled, he had no intention of leaving what he was doing to open the door right now.

Maggie was in the kitchen finishing up the dinner with Sarah. She glanced at Sal and mimicking her father's tone said:

"Honey, could you…?"

Sal rolled her eyes:

"I have to do everything around here!" and smiled to her mother.

She went bare feet over the house to the door. When she opens it, there he is. They look at each other for just a second. This is the first time he came to the house after two months. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. Maybe earlier that day she should have told him not to come. To give a last minute excuse. To get black out drunk and stay at his house. But she could not do this. She liked that he was drinking a little less. Drinking still, but nothing that would threat his health. He reaches out to her, and she realizes he had something in his hand the whole time.

"For the table." He says

She looks terrified at the flowers he is handing her. Not for the flowers itself. He always brings something, wine, flowers, cigars to smoke with Martin at the back porch… But this time is different. He did not show up with random flowers. Deep red hibiscus. He showed up with her favorite flowers. Her only, hard to find and favorite flowers. She looked at the flowers in her hand and the only thing she was able to say was:

"How did you know?"

"You have more than two dresses with this print"

She had exactly three dresses with floral print. All of them red hibiscus flowers.

"Yes…" She smelled the flowers "The one I was wearing this afternoon lost a button. If you could give that back, would be nice."

He smiled and made a mental note of looking for the button he ripped off earlier. Sal moved away from the door and made a sign for him to step in.

Maggie met them in the living room.

"Hi Rust!" She gave him a warm and welcoming hug. "Took you long enough to find the way back here"

Sarah never hugged him when he arrived there. So she kept with this tradition. Instead, she was standing there, mesmerized looking at the flowers in her hands.

"Honey," said Maggie waking Sarah from her flower induced hypnosis "Those are your favorite!"

"I know… I should get a vase"

She walked away to the kitchen. There was a vase somewhere in there, just had to remember where… Those flowers moved her in a way she never thought nothing he could do that night would. Rust's attention to details was borderline pathological, but that came with the job description. What she did not realize, was that he was reading her like this. Could she ever hide something from him? He found out her favorite flowers by her clothes. What else did he knew. Did he notice that she calculated her every move around him? And that she was happy with that? Did he notice himself changing? Did he… There it was! The vase

She puts on a little water and remembers her mother saying that you should cut the flowers stems before putting them in water. And that's what she's doing when her father hits the kitchen.

"Hey baby" He pushes her closer by the shoulder and kisses the top of her head. "Rust brought those?"

"He did" She says mechanically cutting the stems and placing the flowers individually on the vase.

"Pretty." Her father don't know are her favorites. If he knew, he has forgotten. Marty start opening the pans. "What you girls have been cooking for dinner"

"We'll be cooking you if you don't go up and take a shower! Dinner is ready already!"

"Hey!" He looks at her with a mix of surprise and amusement "Who made you the Queen here, missy?"

"No one , I was already the Queen! Now go!" She points out to the door. "Nobody told you to go fix that thing now."

"I'm going because I want to…" He says while leaving the kitchen and going upstairs.

"Yeah, you tell yourself that…" Sarah responds and Marty laughs on his way to the shower.

Maggie walks in a hurry.

"I'm gonna get your sisters a bath. Can you finish up everything and take care of Rust?"

"What?"

Rust walks in at this moment.

"Yeah, don't leave him alone. Offer him something to drink"

"I'm fine" Said Rust.

"Sit." Said Maggie "Have a beer or something" She looks at Sal "What was your father laughing about?"

"I told we would have him for dinner if he didn't went up and took a shower"

Maggie smiled.

"Let me get the brat pack outside and get them cleaned up" She leaves to get the girls

Sal puts the vase up the kitchen counter between them.

"Thanks for the flowers." She says angrily

"Didn't you like them?" Rust seems confused

"I did… But I sure as hell wasn't expecting this. That you knew my favorite flowers"

A happy sound rolls from afar. Her sisters storm in the kitchen and run around her in circles like happy dogs. Maggie walks by straight ahead and says:

"Send them to the bathroom, would you?"

Sarah puts both hands in her hips and says loudly to make herself be heard above her sisters shrieking.

"No running in the kitchen! I have knives and no fear of using them!"

They became even louder and took a couple of rounds around the kitchen table and left to their mother. When the door slammed they were free to talk. Sarah went to the refrigerator and took two beers. When she placed his in front of him she saw that he was no longer there. His body was, but his mind… Seem to have long gone. She didn't need much time to wonder what happened. Sofia… After she grew to know him a little more, that was the first time she was around him and the girls at the same time. It didn't occur to her what would be the effect on him.

He had a daughter. Had… And the phantom of her was what Sarah saw dancing in his eyes every now and then. She took one big sip of her beer and rushed to be in front of him.

"Hey man…" She placed a hand on his cheek and slowly brought him to face her. "Hey… I'm here, ok? I'm here"

His eyes were watery and red. He slowly placed one hand on the back of her neck.

"You're here…" He repeated.

"Yes. Yes, I'm here."

He puts the other hand on her back and pulls her closer. She understands him. He feels empty for a moment. He saw the "what if" future. How maybe Sofia would turn out. Sofia and a friend. Running around, being loud, being kids… And not in a tiny coffin being consumed by the time, and alive only in his and maybe her mother's memory.

He pressed his lips violently against hers.

"I'm sorry…" He says briefly

"Don't be." She finds his lips again.

He felt the nothing. The emptiness. The nameless pain that is to have and have lost a child. He needed to feel something, something to fill the void. Something good and tender to reminder him that the world was not just sorrow. And that something was Sal. She senses that, she feels when he needs this. He needs something to grab and prevent him from slipping into this darkness inside of him. From the past two months she is being his life boat. She stops him from sinking. And he hurts her in the process, she seems not to care.

He forces his tongue inside her mouth and she just gracefully accepts it. He kisses her with urgency. He wants to breathe the air in her lungs; he wants to feel trough her skin. She's a fountain of joy and pleasure and he just needs to have it. Not in sips, but everything at once. And she allows it. She gently caress his hair and neck while he eagerly feels her whole self at once. She's also paying attention to sounds around her. So she hears a door opening. Marty is done with the showers. She slowly pulls him away, but he holds on to her as a dying man holds to his last breath.

"Marty will be here in any minute now… We have to…"

"I know…" He slowly lets her go. She sees in his eyes that he is better than he was minutes ago. But not quite.

"Can we see each other later tonight?"

"Yes." He says with some relief in his voice "We can make this"

She smile and walks away from him. He runs his hands on his hair. They place themselves one on each side of the kitchen counter when Marty arrives.

"Hey man. Wanna move this beer to the back porch?"

"Yeah …" Rust says standing up from his bench.

"Honey," Marty says "Pass me a bottle, would you?"

Sarah looks at him and takes two long sips of her own bottle and smacks her lips at the end of it. "Nope" she says.

"Getting really tired this your mother's side attitude" As he goes get his beer in the refrigerator.

"Ha! My mother's side…" Sarah laughs "That's a good one."

Dinner was going fine. Marty and Maggie sat in opposite sides of the table lengthwise. Leaving the girls at one side of the table, and Rust and Sal side by side. They're chatting normally. Even Marty admits Rusts looks a little more people like then the last time he sat on the same place having dinner.

"You know what Maggie?" Marty says between sips of wine "I believe, Rust finally found a woman crazy enough for him"

Sarah just keeps having her meal without flinching to the sound of this and take a napkin to her lips. When she looks at it, it has little spots of blood. Her father's line surprised her so much she bit her tongue.

"Really?" Says Maggie "When are we going to meet her, Rust?"

From under the table, Sarah hooks her foot on Rust's ankles.

"I don't know what the he…" He looks across the table to the girls "What crazy thing your husband is saying"

"Just look at him, Maggie" Marty continues "Doesn't he seems different?"

Maggie looks at him, smiling maternally. She looks deep in his eyes.

"He does…" She says "He feels lighter."

"I'm telling you! He even has a cell phone. And sometimes I see him writing messages to someone"

"Really?!" Says Maggie surprised.

"C'mon dad…" Sal takes a sip of her wine. "Everybody has a cell phone this days. You have one, I have one…"

"Yeah sugar…" Marty reaches his hand on the table and place it on his daughter's hand "But we are normal people. Mr. Sunshine, by your side, probably think cell phones are just one more step into our eternal search for redeem… Or something like this!"

"I don't know…" Sal drinks more "I just don't see the connection"

"But Maggie is right." Marty continues "When are we going to meet her? Or she isn't the kind of girl you introduce to friends?"

Maggie and Sal both give him the same disapproval look.

"I think one had too much wine…" Maggie says

"Agreed." Sarah rises her glass as a toast to that. Rust drinks to it, rising his glass with one hand as the other rests in Sal's thigh under the table.

The dinner finishes, the girls go watch some TV, while Maggie and Sal clean up the dishes. Marty pours Rust and himself a scotch and they both sit on the bench of the back porch. They're talking about the most recent case.

The door from the house to the backyard opens, and Sarah steps outside and sits between both men.

"You guys can keep talking. I have no interest in whatever murderer you guys are after" She says as she reaches her hand to her father. He looks at her face, and she smiles "Pretty please?"

He reaches in his front pocket and gives her a cigarette. He lights it.

"Your mother would kill both of us if she saw that."

She draws in the smoke and lets it out of her mouth and nose

"Oh yes… I don't really care…" She said in a voice almost as sexy and satisfied as Rust had heard many times already in the past couple of months. "I am what you made me" She says.

"No way, Sarah." He says "You gonna face your mother alone in that one. I will even act surprised as if I didn't knew."

She open her mouth chocked and acted offended.

"You wouldn't stand up for me? Your first daughter?"

"No ma'am."

"You're worthless…" She finally said.

They both laugh. Rust watches the dynamic of them. Nothing he hasn't seen before, but never ceases to amaze him. They acted out like friends. His hypothesis was that, when Maggie got pregnant of Sarah. They were both young. Maggie, up to this day was the most responsible one, and when the girls arrived she knew how to act as a mother. Marty, on the other hand, had no idea. He made all the mistakes raising this one. When the second girl arrived, he was already trained on how to raise a girl. But this one was already a girl raised for a guy who had no idea how to do that.

She had the same taste in music, the same stubbornness and will as her father. But physically, she was her mother with a blond straight hair. They had the same constitution, small but strong. And their eyes… They both had that violent look in their eyes. They seem to be looking through your skull and directly into your thoughts. He felt that sometimes with her. That she wasn't looking jus at him, but she was reading his mind. And he was afraid of letting her do this. She would find no good in there. She would find how messed up he was. And he would be once again left with no hope.

Bu at the same time, letting her in bit by bit, was being good to him. He was even letting it show to people he wasn't supposed to. He felt a little whole with her. He felt some kind of peace. Some kind of happiness. Some kind of lo…

"Sal!" Maggie called from the inside of the house

"Oh shit…" Sarah placed her almost finished cigarette between Rut's fingers. And looked at him with that bright eyes.

Maggie opened the door.

"Could you put your sisters to sleep? They said they want you…"

"Aww… That's cute!" Sarah said "I'll be right there."

When Maggie close the door, Sarah goes

"Give me a mint, please please please!"

Her father places three mints in her palms. She chews them quickly and loud.

"Thank you!" She says with the widest grin she can.

She goes to the door and bangs it open.

"Here comes the tickle monster!"

The shrieking and screams fill the house. Both girls run upstairs as Sal runs inside the house after them. Both men watch the scene with a loving glare.

"You know…" Marty takes some of his scotch and point out to the house "That is one living proof of how fool I am."

"Your family?" Rust asks, knowing exactly what he meant

"Yeah… Them all…" Marty takes the bottle to his mouth once again "But specially Sal"

Without thinking, Rust lifts up the cigarette Sal placed between his fingers and takes a drag. He can very faintly feel her lips on it. Marty continues.

"When Maggie got pregnant the first time, and we found out it was a girl, I went crazy, man!" His eyes focused on some point at the lawn, and he was rambling like Rust wasn't there. Maybe Sarah was right, maybe he did had too much wine. He went on:

"I was going to be a first time father, and was going to be a girl. What if I messed up? You know what I mean? Girls are scary!" He took another sip of the glass as trying to shake away some bad memory.

"But then… That girl came along… And the doctor placed that little pink tiny thing in my arms. And she just stopped crying, and I didn't drop her, and she grabbed my finger really tight… And that was it!" He seemed magically out of trance "I don't know, I just… Fell in love with her"

Both men sat at the bench in the backyard, both men looked at the stars and both men, not knowingly, had their mind full of the same girl…

Sal lay awake in her bedroom. The dinner today was better than she expected. But she thought she could squeeze some time with Rust yet today. He was in pretty bad shape earlier. He felt better after, but she was still worried. He was already gone when the girls finally slept. She sent a message telling him they could talk if he wanted to, but had no answer.

Just as she thought that, the phone vibrates. It's past 1 am and everybody is asleep in the house. The message on the phone reads "2 houses down". She looks out the window and there it is, the red truck.

She considers sending a message saying "NO". But then again… He might be needing help. She arranges the pillows in her bed. She always locked the door of her room, but it wouldn't hurt to make it look like she was still there. She replied "wait" and a few minutes after she was out the front door.


End file.
